


Oaths

by DefinitelyNotLazav



Category: Fallen London | Echo Bazaar
Genre: Multi, Polyamory, The Liberation of Night, gonna be real with you I'm shit at tagging, hopefully this is enjoyable anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:55:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28452750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DefinitelyNotLazav/pseuds/DefinitelyNotLazav
Summary: You will all be true.(Basically, I got to thinking about how The Oath destiny paired with being married to a Bewildering Procession of Companions, Lovers, Suitors, and Paramours might go, and then made up a gaggle of people to get sentimental about.)
Relationships: Player (Fallen London)/A Bewildering Procession of Companions Lovers Suitors and Paramours
Kudos: 14





	Oaths

You open your eyes to nothing. At first you are not sure you’ve done it right, so you try again. Your eyes do not deceive you. There is nothing to see.

You cast about in shock, feeling the weave of your sheets, and there- an arm. You are not alone. The Reticent Writer shifts at your touch, but does not wake. You wrap your fingers, gently, around her wrist, and wait for your eyes to adjust, to see the dim outline of her face. The darkness holds the same. Outside, you can hear what sounds like a distant scream, then another. 

Panicked, you shake her awake, finding her shoulders through tenuous touch. She inquires what is wrong. You quietly ask that she remove her sleeping mask. She shifts in the dark, hand towards her eyes, and then she sees, or rather, doesn’t. You feel her begin to tremble as the screams from the streets multiply.

You hold each other for a number of moments. “We should wake them,” she whispers into your shoulder. You nod in agreement, your chin brushing her neck, and turn to rouse the other occupant of your bed, but they are already sitting up. The Exacting Eccentric is motionless, absorbing the atmosphere. They reach out, their spindly fingers weaving into your own.

“What happened?” Their voice is hoarse. You’ve told them they ought to stop smoking right before bed. They laugh and tell you they have many loves, but foremost are you and Rosegate cigars. Would you really make them choose, they plead? You always relent.

“I don’t know.” Your words hang in the now hostile shadow of what was once your shared room.

“They must have done it,” whispers the Writer. “Rupert said… he said they were getting close, about two months ago. He sounded scared, this time, but I thought it might just be rumors. He’s been wrong before.”

“Then it’s the...” you trail off. She squeezes your hand in confirmation.

The Liberation. Oh, the whispers you’ve heard. They were nothing to prepare you for its reality.

“We have to get the others.” The strike of a match, but no light. The smell of a newly lit cigar, then the sound of the Eccentric burning their hand and dropping the smoking matchstick.

Both of you agree with them. A natural step. What comes after can wait until everyone is secured. With only a moment taken to make sure the match will not burn the house as you leave, you extricate yourself from the sheets and fumble for shoes.

Your townhouse is a labyrinth, every corner, table, stairway and railing a stranger. You pause at the end of the hall, the three of you deliberating. A terrifying decision is made; you will take the left, the Eccentric the right, and the Writer will wait for you both here, at the head of the stairs. Their fingers slip from yours and you march into the void.

The wallpaper crackles slightly beneath your hand, the rim brushing your fingers. A frame, a door, a knob… You make to knock, but then simply crack open the door. No strip of light spills in. A quavering voice from the corner, next to where you know there is a window only by the clamor outside.

“Who’s there? What’s happening? Why can’t I see?”

You step through the doorway, raising your arm to reassure, out of habit. You murmur your name, softly, in the voice you always try to use when she gets scared. The Nervous Notary hears you out, finding some slippers as you explain. When she makes the walk across her room and finds your outstretched arms, she falls into them, resting her head against your bosom, taking shaky breaths. A minute passes, maybe more. Noises in the hallway. Time to return.

Supporting her back to the landing, tender as ever, you find that the Eccentric has brought the Coral-Scarred Captain from his study. The clacking of his cane is familiar, but the absence of the scintillack glint on the end is as discomfiting as everything else about the darkness. After a careful collective check of the few nooks on the rest of the floor, you link arms with your retinue and descend to the ground level.

Quiet calls and fumbling searches in twos and threes reveal none of the others remain in the house, and the staff seem to have vacated their rooms. You secure your coat, and the others follow suit. The Writer and the Captain scrounge food. Some valuables are pocketed off shelves, those discernible by touch and too precious to leave, even if they don’t stay with you, wherever you might be going.

You all leave out the side door, leaving your home behind. You don’t get a last look, just a whispered goodbye.

The streets are filled with screams, fires, violence, and proclamations, made both by clergy and Liberationists. You head along the edges of Veilgarden, seeking the likely location of the Militant Milliner. You guide the Notary by the hand, while the Writer gently covers her ears. The Captain leads, cane clacking on the cobbles. One opportunist tries to attack; a loud crack in the dark, and they no longer impede you.

The Milliner’s shop window has been broken, as evidenced by the crunching of glass beneath your shoes. The door is intact, and unlocked. Your hurried procession makes its way in to find the back room barricaded. The Eccentric raps on the door, a code given only to fellow members of the Milliner’s small revolutionary cell (and his cell of companions). A lock disengages.

“I can’t see you, but judging by the numerous footsteps, I would assume you are not my handler.”

The Writer sighs in relief. “Rupert. We need to go.”

“Plenty ahead of you. I didn’t want to risk the streets alone, but I’m packed. Are we… all accounted for?”

You do a mental head count.

“One missing,” pipes up the Notary. “She must still be at the lab.”

“Then next stop, University.”

\----

The hallway echoes the Milliner’s counting as each room is passed. “24… 25… 26… 27!”

The Merry Taxidermist is waiting on the other side of the door with a scalpel in hand, and has been for the better part of two hours, or so she tells you. She’s been counting the ticking of her clock. Her doctor’s bag of tools is prepared, and she has little else to take with, but you pause for a good while in the invisible lab. Everyone is huddled close enough to feel heartbeats, and to know that the darkness has not yet consumed anyone as physically as it has visually. 

There is no talk for a while. Finally, the Captain speaks.

“Where now?”

“...We have to go up, don’t we?” The Notary’s voice is rarely steady, but several minutes of deep breaths and loving embraces have slightly soothed her nerves. “We can’t let them go unwarned, up there.”

“She’s right,” says the Milliner. “The Council will try again. This was a mere test, I’m sure.”

“Right on,” mutters the Captain. “B____y long walk we’re in for.”

“Together.” The Writer’s hand, beneath yours, squeezes him on the shoulder.

Murmurs of agreement born on warm breaths flutter out of all of you. You begin to help each other up. 

\----

The usual ways to the surface are clogged with refugees. But you, seasoned finder of secrets, have the key to the Last Labyrinth, and the Ferryman's Promise to preserve you from Surface-death. You worry the entire way it may not be enough, that it may not apply to all of them. Eventually, you voice this concern, but they all assure you that the risk is necessary, and they would rather make it to the surface with you and find out the worst then be left behind. The tunnels are terrible; you pass through fungus-choked corridors, pits where the Inhabitors walk, the broken gates. You cling together in the dark, hand in hand in hand in hand in hand in hand in hand. Alone, you would have fallen; together, you carry through. Finally, you breach the surface, stumbling free of an ancient tomb in the center of an apple orchard. The night air is warm and smells of summer. 

You all drop your packs and fall to the ground together, staring up into the sky, full of stars not yet extinguished. You swear it never looked so bright in all your life as it does now. You feel the Eccentric’s hand in your right, the Notary’s hand in your left; you feel the Taxidermist laying her head on your leg. Somebody chuckles. The Captain’s wheezy chortle in response sets off a chain of exhausted laughs. They’re so quiet in the open air, and they are the most beautiful sound you can imagine.

Your eyes begin to close themselves. The final thought before sleep overtakes you is that when you wake, you should spend a while and look at them all again. It’s been too long.


End file.
